Chess Training

Here is an exercise, promoted by Jeremy Silman in "How to Reassess Your Chess - The Complete Chess Mastery Course", to practice and improve your calculation skills. A Word of Warning: this exercise is difficult and time-consuming! However, I think it is one of the most useful and improving exercises you can do. Take an annotated game from one of your favorite players and play out the first 10 moves or so until you reach the beginnings of the middlegame, stopping when it is your move (your favorite players move, that is). Now, cover up the moves and figure out what is going on, using your thinking technique (or Silmans', if you prefer, by recording the imbalances, etc.) and derive your candidate moves. Write down all your candidate moves! Now, without moving the pieces, analyze out each candidate move in your head. Analyze each branch as far as you think you need to. After you are done with this move, make the move in the game and the response and do it all over again. Con...

Thinking Tactics - An Amateur's Perspective "A famous chess coach Mark Dvoretsky considers the tactical skill of a chess player to include two main components - the combinative vision and the calculating technique. In his opinion, in order to develop one's chess imagination one should solve tasks aimed at finding (not calculating out!) a correct tactical idea." "It is important to remember a 'golden' rule when calculating variations: in any position, you should first see if there are any checks, then any captures and if they work or not, - then calculate the threats (Pins, forks, etc.). We call it 'checks - captures - threats'." It is important to organize your thinking process in this manner as most games are decided by tactical shots. We should get used to looking at all: 1) Checks 2) Captures 3) Threats (Pins, Forks, Double Attacks, etc.) as we process a position in our inner minds. It pays to try and develop a repeatable and efficient thi...

Here is a list of our various study and solving routines and some suggested reference materials that can be used to implement those routines: Key: N - Novice ( SO - Opening Studies N: "Starting Out" Series, Everyman Chess; A: Any good opening intermediate/advanced book on your chosen repertoire line. SG - Strategic Studies N: My System - Nimzovitch A: Modern Chess Strategy - Pachman, Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy - Watson SE - Endgame Studies N: A Guide to Chess Endings - Euwe/Hooper, A: Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual - Dvoretsky, Fundamental Chess Endings - Muller/Lamprecht ST - Tactical Studies N: Winning Chess Tactics - Seirawan A: Secrets of Chess Tactics - Dvoretsky VT - Tactical Problem-Solving N: 1001 Brilliant ways to Checkmate - Reinfeld, Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games - Polgar, A: Sharpen Your Tactics - Anatoly Lein VG - Strategic Problem-Solving A: Imagination in Chess - Gaprindashvili VE - Endgame Problem-Solving N: Chess Endgame Quiz - Evans A:...

The act of playing good competitive chess is, of course, the primary goal of the GCTS. Every player will transgress at some point the various classes of chess skill as his understanding and competency of the game increases. Let's discuss for a moment the Frequency of Play within, and outside, the framework of the GCTS. Play As a Training Tool Playing chess as part of the trainig environment (The "PL" Sessions in our GCTS) is not the same as competitive chess. The differences are subtle. When you play as part of your training, typically games less than G30 or so, you are playing games to evaluate your understanding of your current knowledge of opening theory, the implementation of middlegame plan construction, strategic decision, etc. Training games typically are shorter and more relaxed as it is more important to display a wide set of ideas in your games, and to play more games, and not so much the end result. Of course, we want to win all games, but the focus is not on w...

This match has begun. It is a blindfold contest. http://www.ajedrezbilbao.com/

Hi all - feel free to post your ideas and your progress so far if you are using the GCTS in any form, and especially if you have other ideas about self-training methods you'd like to share with everyone here!

Eric Talmadge has written a piece on Bobby Fischer that is mildly interesting Here .